The stench of Chicago cronyism over the White House just got fouler. Inhale this:
A shadowy $10 billion Obamacare agency with zero oversight just awarded first lady Michelle Obama’s pet patient-dumping scheme at the University of Chicago Medical Center a $5.9 million taxpayer-funded grant. It will enable Mrs. Obama’s cronies to build a government-sponsored electronic medical record-sharing system.
The Chicago program, known as the Urban Health Initiative, is run by one of President Obama’s closest golfing buddies, scandal magnet Eric Whitaker, who has been entangled with Illinois corruption celebrities Rod Blagojevich and ...

When my wife was a liberal, she complained that libertarian reasoning is coldhearted. Since markets produce winners and losers — and many losers did nothing wrong — market competition is cruel. It must seem so. President Obama used the word “fair” in his last State of the Union address nine times.
We are imprinted to prefer a world that is “fair.” Our close relatives the chimpanzees freak out when one chimp gets more than his fair share, so zookeepers are careful about food portions. Chimps are hardwired to get angry when ...

Let’s think about whether all acts of Congress deserve our respect and obedience. Suppose Congress enacted a law — and the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional — requiring American families to attend church services at least three times a month. Should we obey such a law? Suppose Congress, acting under the Constitution’s commerce clause, enacted a law requiring motorists to get eight hours of sleep before driving on interstate highways. Its justification might be that drowsy motorists risk highway accidents and accidents affect interstate commerce. Suppose you were a jury ...

From May 5-11, 2012, I conducted a survey of 6,000 likely voters. On such a mammoth sample, the margin of error is less than one percent. I found that Romney has amassed a sizeable lead over Obama of 51-42, far in excess of what published polling and surveys of registered — as opposed to likely voters — are indicating.
If Romney were to win 51 percent of the vote, the election would, of course, be very close. But if he could hold Obama to 42 percent, it would be a landslide. ...

When banks generate huge profits, they are exploiting the American people, engaging in unadulterated greed and, needless to say, in need of more regulation. And when banks lose too much money? Yep, they’re being insatiably greedy — but stupid, too — and, naturally, in need of more regulation.
The unscrupulous can’t win for losing, apparently.
So when JPMorgan Chase & Co. suffers about $2 billion in losses (probably more) via complex derivative trades that were used by an obscure unit within the bank to hedge against risk, everyone in Washington seems quite ...

When it comes to opposition research, there is often only one difference between a candidate’s vicious negative ad and an “investigative” news report: the undeserved patina of media “objectivity” and respectability.
Take the Washington Post’s Jason Horowitz’s 5,400-word “expose” on how Mitt Romney may have pinned a boy down and cut his hair in 1965. 1965? That’s almost a half century ago. Even if every detail were accurate — and they weren’t — a journalist could pull a muscle in the hyper-aggressive attempt to make it somehow relevant to the present ...

While your co-workers hover around the water cooler debating whether it matters if Mitt Romney bullied some kid in his youth, a formerly First World nation called Greece is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Why, you might ask, should Middle America pry its overworked eyes away from Jennifer Lopez gyrating around in a bodysuit on “American Idol” long enough to bother caring?
Now replace “Greece” with “your bank.” It suddenly matters a little more, doesn’t it? What if your bank couldn’t loan you money, give you a mortgage or allow ...

According to President Obama, he’s a historic figure. That’s no figure of speech. This week, journalist Seth Mandel discovered that President Obama had authorized his staff to add his name to the biographies of former presidents from Calvin Coolidge to George W. Bush on the White House website.
For example, Calvin Coolidge, it now states at WhiteHouse.gov, created the Federal Radio Commission; President Obama “became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, etc.” Franklin D. Roosevelt created Social Security; President Obama says ...

At PJ Media — the online media company where I am CEO — we preach to the conservative choir quite a bit.
It’s not our fault for the most part. It’s the way of the world these days. The left talks to the left and the right talks to the right.
Sure, we have some internal differences (gay marriage is one area), but PJM writers and readers largely agree on the big issues of the economy (stop spending), size of government (less is more) and, mostly anyway, on foreign policy (be strong).
The ...

After my girlfriend and I split up, I wrote a creative nonfiction piece about our breakup (changing some identifying details). I published it on a popular blog and linked to it on Facebook. We’re back together, and things are great; however, she saw the story and was humiliated. I explained that what I wrote was beautiful and vulnerable and true, and many people were moved by it. She really wasn’t down with that and told me to consider her off-limits in my writing. This seems unfair. I write nonfiction. What ...

One can pray umpteen times a day, don a yarmulke, tefillin and tzitzit – that doesn’t make them a religious person. In recent days, the mainstream media has paid undue attention to so-called “religious” child molesters – and those who defend them. They can be called a slew of different words – but religious, and Orthodox wouldn’t be words fitting for them.
Media has spoken of Brooklyn prosecutors protecting child molesters in the closed “ultra-Orthodox Jewish” communities. “Rabbinical authorities banned relatives of the abused from reporting the crimes to non-Jewish authorities; those few ...

The Wall Street crash of 1929 was followed by the Great Depression. The crash came as a complete surprise to many “experts.” A month before the crash, Charles Mitchell, former Chairman of the National City Bank, announced, “The industrial condition of the United States is absolutely sound.”
Prominent economist Ervin Fisher said nine days before the crash, “I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher than it is today within a few months.” Even the Harvard Economic Society Bulletin announced, “A depression like 1920-21 is clearly out of ...

One month ago it appeared that Germany held the whip hand in its titanic struggle against those seeking to cure all economic ills with the snake oil of currency debasement. Now, it appears that the ground beneath its feet is being swept away in a flood of popular unrest and political exploitation. The recent elections in Europe, which highlight both the strong grass roots revolt against Germanic demands in Greece and France show that the cause of sound money and fiscal prudence to be a lonely and difficult endeavor.
The political ...

Perhaps Mitt Romney played it right when he was meek and contrite in response to the Washington Post’s front-page allegations that he bullied a kid half a century ago in high school.
Romney no doubt feels embarrassed by the charges, even if most of us struggle to understand their relevance or gauge their veracity. But the time is coming for Romney to get angry, very angry, with what is increasingly, quaintly called “the mainstream media.”
The Post’s decision to play up the story as if it were major news — front page, ...

From Investors Business Daily.
Excerpt:
Here’s a disturbing update to last week’s amazing story about the U.S. mole who infiltrated al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and thwarted an airliner attack with a more sophisticated underwear bomb.
Someone in Washington whose boss stood to gain from an election year story about alert intelligence operatives successfully protecting American voters at great personal risk leaked the heroic story to the Associated Press. The AP held the story until Obama administration sources said the CIA operative was safe.
But, it turns out, the mole was not a CIA operative. The Obama ...

A conference call Tuesday morning for the press with Jesse
Benton of the Ron Paul campaign strove to clarify that in fact Ron
Paul
is not dropping out or suspending his campaign, though he still
is planning on not campaigning much in forthcoming primary states.
Highlights from Benton and my comments:

Benton admits something that some Paul fans, with their belief
that there is no such thing as a "bound
delegate," don't
want to admit: that Romney "has very likely an insurmountable
delegate lead," with just 200 more needed to lock it down. "We
acknowledge that we are very unlikely to be able to block that
nomination."

Still, Benton says, the energy of the movement is growing: Paul
has spoken to more than 100,000 college kids in his recent campus
swings. And that sort of campaigning, as well as appearing at state
GOP conventions like this weekend's upcoming
one in Minnesota, will continue. Benton also praised Paul
people's victories in taking party leadership positions, singling
out
Ashley Ryan, the new national committeewoman from Maine and a
Paul fan.

He stressed they still hope to come in with the largest
delegation of Paul supporters into Tampa they can--but in what I
take to be a reaction to
the hubbub at the Oklahoma and Arizona conventions over the
weekend, he stresses again and again that respect and decorum are
their desired name of the game for every step of the process, which
he thinks will help Paul people become a "stronger voice in the
Party." To some Paul fans, talk of "decorum" has a bit much of the
feel of giving in to procedural tricks or bullying on the part of
the Party establishment.

While any agreement on things like a speaking slot or an
endorsement between Paul and Romney is roundly denied, Benton does
speak of "contact with the Romney campaign" on platform issues,
especially Federal Reserve transparency, prohibition of indefinite
detention, and "Internet freedom."

The campaign also wants to make sure that their people are able
to "vote on rules for the next four years and create a favorable
rules environment for our people and set the stage for other
liberty candidates to rise in the GOP." As I write, I'm not sure of
the specifics of what rules the Paul campaign hopes to change and
why that will help future liberty candidates. Benton repeated that
respect and civility and decorum are the watchwords for the
campaign and its activists moving forward--though I think Benton
understands, even if he might regret, that while Ron Paul is seen
as an ideological leader by his activists, he is not a
military-style leader who can order his troops to behave or stand
down.

While Benton refuses to say Paul will endorse Romney, he
believes that "if our ideas are embraced and treated with respect,
I think the GOP has a very good change to pick up a substantial
number of votes" from Paul people. "If we are treated like in '08,
then I think a lot of people will stay home or sit on their hands."
Agreed, though I think it will be very hard for a Romney like the
Romney of today to pick up many Paul fan votes. The vote is not
like matter that can neither be created nor destroyed; Paul
invented his vote and without him I think a majority of it will
disappear in November.

Benton says there is "no chance" of an endorsement of Gary
Johnson of the Libertarian Party.

He hopes their troops do not feel "abandoned" by the perception
of a Paul drop-out.

He says worries about whether Obama might beat Romney without a
Paul endorsement will not compel Paul to give such an
endorsement.

Asked whether the Paul campaign is concerned by possible acting
out in public by groups like "Combat
Veterans for Paul," Benton says that a free people can do
whatever they want, march or protest or whatever, and that Paul's
campaign does not feel accountable for the behavior of any Paul
supporters who are not "Paul delegates on the convention floor" who
they intend to hold to, again, respect, professionalism, civility,
decorum.

I still believe that announcement from Monday--even followed up
by
this and this explanation of the
delegate and convention strategy moving forward--was a mistake,
and it should have been understood that it would be spun by nearly
everyone as "Paul drops out." If that was no part of their intent,
they would have been better set continuing to not campaign hard,
not spend much, raise a little cash via moneybomb when they needed
it, and let the story continue to be "Paul keeps racking up
delegates" and not "Paul drops out, no he doesn't, he's still
winning delegates, but he's not campaigning, but it will all be
done with decorum, you can bet that."